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The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) has been a formal partner for some key initiatives at the Federal Communications Commission. I’m speaking in particular about our Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment and our Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. I wanted to spend some timegiving an update on the latest developments regarding these important ventures.

Let’s start with the Diversity Committee. We’ve organized [its] efforts around three working groups: The first is the Digital Empowerment and Inclusion working group. The second working group focuses on Diversity in the Tech Sector. Finally, we’ve tasked the Broadcast Diversity and Development working group. I am determined that the FCC on my watch will take concrete steps to create a more diverse communications industry. I am pleased to announce that we will take the next steps toward this goal on March 27th, when the Diversity Committee plans to hold its next meeting. On a different but related note, there is another issue I’d like to touch on. A number of years ago, the FCC looked into a repugnant practice in which certain advertisers would exclude minority-focused media outlets from their ad campaigns though a so-called "No Urban/No Hispanic" dictate. Later today, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (the 4As) will be announcing a new policy, called Fair Play. It’s issuing a charter to its members, asking media agencies and media departments within agencies to recommit to fair and equitable treatment of minority media owners. I want to put it on the record today that this initiative has my full support.

I’d like to take a couple of minutes to discuss another group that has been very hard at work this past year, and which has benefited from MMTC’s partnership. I’m referring to our Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, or BDAC. And the plain truth is that there are significant regulatory barriers to the expansion and improvement of our wired and wireless infrastructure. These barriers are the grit in the gears of deployment that the BDAC was created to address.